Bruce Springsteen
Devils & Dust - CBS 2005 Comments:"Devils and Dust" is a 2005 acoustic album by Bruce Springsteen. It goes without saying that the album is more subdued than when The E Street Band backs up, and along the way you may easily come to think of Bob Dylan's early acoustic albums. However, in addition to Springsteen's acoustic guitar, there is a wide range of other instruments, so several tracks have much of the dynamics that characterize him, when he is at his best - and the album is far from entirely acoustic.
Most of the time, the tracks will grow as you get to know them better, and I have to admit that at first I was a bit disappointed and didn't feel that there were any really memorable songs - apart from "Jesus Was an Only Son", which is still my favorite.
Fortunately, more favorite tracks have come up. The title track "Devils & Dust" starts off subdued and continues with a nice dramatic build-up. More upbeat is "Long Time Comin", where there is both a full band support and fine female harmony vocals. "Black Cowboys" is a nice quiet number with acoustic guitar, but also with subdued accompanying strings, bass, piano, choir and horns.
A quiet and melodic slightly anonymous number is "Reno", which only made an impression when I became aware of the lyrics - which some listeners will perceive as somewhat controversial.
All in all, as is often the case with Springsteen, it is another fine album, even if there are hardly many future concert favorites on "Devil's & Dust".
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